January 2012

NEWS!!!

Arrietty Screening to Be Held in Dallas on January 22

Screening held 1 month before February 17 opening in North America

The USA Film Festival in Dallas announced on Friday that it is working with GKIDS to hold a screening of The Secret World of Arrietty on January 22 at 3:00 p.m. Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Studio Ghibli's Arrietty film will receive a theatrical run in North America starting on February 17. In conjunction with A-Kon, the festival will screen 11 Ghibli films on new 35mm prints from January 21 to 22, and A-Kon fans can reserve tickets before sales to the general public begin.

Arrietty re-imagines Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers by moving the story to a Tokyo suburb. The story revolves around Arrietty, a member of the "little people" who live under the floorboards of a regular human family's home, and their struggle to remain hidden from the human "beans."

The movie originally opened in Japanese theaters in July 2010 with supervision by Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. The film also received a different English dub in the U.K. and ran in theaters there in August.

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K-ON! Film Sells 1 Million+ Tickets by 5th Week

Anime earns US$17 million as of its 30th day; new poster celebrates New Year's

The official website for the K-ON! anime franchise confirmed on Friday that the K-ON! film has sold over one million tickets, five weeks into its theatrical run. The entertainment news source Variety had already reported earlier this week that the film had earned the equivalent of US$17,002,351 (about 1.3 billion yen) as of its 30th day at the box office (January 1), thus indicating that about one million tickets had been sold.

Participating theaters have been displaying an exclusive K-ON! New Year's poster as of January 1.

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Lucky Star Shrine Attracts 470,000 During New Year's

Washinomiya Shrine, the Tokyo area's oldest shrine and a real-life backdrop for the Lucky Star anime series, attracted 470,000 over the first three days of the new year. This is the first time in five years that the New Year's attendance did not increase from the previous year.

Otaku have been flocking to this shrine since the 2007 anime featured Kagami and Tsukasa Hiiragi — twin sister characters who supposedly work at the shrine as miko (shrine maidens). 90,000 attended in 2007, 300,000 in 2008, 420,000 in 2009, 450,000 in 2010, and 470,00 in 2011.

Anime earns US$17 million as of its 30th day; new poster celebrates New Year's The official website for the K-ON! anime franchise confirmed on Friday that the K-ON! film has sold over one million tickets, five weeks into its theatrical run. The entertainment news source Variety had already reported earlier this week that the film had earned the equivalent of US$17,002,351 (about 1.3 billion yen) as of its 30th day at the box office (January 1), thus indicating that about one million tickets had been sold.

Participating theaters have been displaying an exclusive K-ON! New Year's poster as of January 1.

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Hollywood Reporter: Live-Action Akira Film's Production Shut Down

Vancouver offices to close, some staff "told to stop working"

The Hollywood Reporter trade magazine's Heat Vision blog is reporting on Thursday that the live-action film adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga is being shut down because of "casting and budgetary issues." According to the website, the film's production offices in Vancouver will be closed, and "below-the-line" staff (those who work on film's physical production) have been "told to stop working."

The site reports that, according to insiders, if the project's issues cannot be resolved, it "could end up being shelved entirely." Producers Jennifer Kiloran Davisson and Andrew Lazar, along with director Jaume Collet-Serra, will work on revising the film's script for the next two weeks. According to the site, Collet-Serra was working on a US$90 million budget for the film, but now needs to cut the budget down to between US$60-US$70 million to keep it going.

Warner Bros. officially green-lit the film for production in October. The Variety entertainment trade magazine project had described the film as a "potential tentpole project," and it was slated to begin production in late February or early March. (A "tentpole" franchise is a property which will, in theory, support a studio financially for much of a particular movie season.)

Variety had reported in July that Warner hired director Collett-Serra (Unknown, Orphan, House of Wax) to direct the film, which was "being reenvisioned as a $90 million" blockbuster project. In May, previous director Albert Hughes left the project due to "creative differences" on the film.

The development team with producer Lazar (Jonah Hex, Space Cowboys, Get Smart) hired a writer named Albert Torres last year, after screenwriters Gary Whitta, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby were previously attached to the project. When the project was originally announced in 2008, it was intended to be the directorial debut for Ireland's Ruairi Robinson. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, The Aviator) is producing through his Appian Way production company.

Source: Anime News Network